March 20, 2011

one way to participate in our government

What's a hackathon? A group of technical people getting together to share ideas and build things. Specifically, the things they build are web or other types of applications that use data to tell us something interesting and valuable. Hacking, despite the negative connotation of causing trouble that is sometimes given to the word, is about disrupting the status quo, bringing something new to the world.

I am not a software developer nor a programmer. I can't participate in the writing of code to build an application. Nor do I understand a great deal of the technical conversation that swirls around me as those who have the expertise collaboratively brainstorm, debate, and share ideas.

So why do I spend a day at a hackathon?

There are two main reasons.

I am fascinated by data, and I like to learn. I like to be part of helping government and other organizations to understand that regular people want to know more about what affects us. It is through having information that we can do a better job of being citizens, and of helping to support the choices that will be good for our cities, provinces, country and the world. Sit down with others for a short time and the ideas flow. And although us citizens know something of the data and information we would like to have - so that the developers can use it to build applications we can use - we can't even begin to scratch the surface of the interesting data that is held in government databases.

I believe in the concept of hacking. Finding unconventional solutions to problems. Disrupting the status quo. It is a word that resonates with me; although the word is not used to describe what I do, I too am a hacker of sorts. For example, I am a hacker of workplace teams, helping them to shift them from a culture of survival to a culture of power. A culture where each team member has greater self-awareness, greater willingness to learn and contribute, a desire to bring the best of themselves to the work of their team.

When I attend an open data hackathon, I have the opportunity to support these two things that I value. And I can bring my own skills in communicating and engaging others to help others like me to see ourselves into it.

This matters to us. I think we are in a time, in our province and in the world, when we as citizens need to contribute our intelligence. We are facing some challenging issues. We can't expect governments to solve everything on our behalf. Our collective intelligence as citizens is a powerful resource that can be brought to bear. We need to put ourselves out there. We need to find effective ways of engaging and collaborating with the people who work in our governments.

Participating in community events like open data hackathons is one way for me to engage and collaborate. It makes a difference.